Hi Andrew, may I ask where the problem lies in this? I ask as I was assuming it would be possible to run a dual head graphic card with one side attached to a standard LCD monitor with a touch screen and the other to a projector (mirroring displays). This means I don't always need the projector on or remote handy to look at photos or listen to the radio.

As you can tell from my profile I'm new, so still figuring out how the system all works. I'm slowly collecting parts to put together a basic budget hybrid to start with for displaying media on the projector in my lounge. I picked up a NVIDIA GeForce FX5200 with dual VGA outputs hoping I could make use of both displays, I've used dual head cards on Linux before. The card is new and worked out cheaper than a single VGA port card here in New Zealand so thought I would try it out since the motherboards I own don't have compatible graphic chips. Waiting for my partner to bring it back from the US with her, so just collecting information at the moment. Thanks.

If you were doing display mirroring then I think that this should work, however I don't think you will get a desirable result.

UI2 basically came about due to UI1 not being desirable for the onscreen orbiter (ie: on your TV/projector etc) and to allow control with pointing devices or remote controls.

UI1 is still the best UI suited to touch screen type interfacing.

So basically you would need to run UI1 on your Media Director and that would get displayed (mirrored) on both displays which I think you will find is not desirable.

A cheap tablet or mobile phone is much better as you get a separate orbiter instance from your on-screen orbiter (which can be set to UI2)If your budget doesn't extend to a separate touch device then I believe that a remote control or wireless mouse etc are your next best options and indeed the beauty of the system is that they can be used in combination (ie: Whilst the wife is trying to select some crappy video/audio/TV with the remote - use your phone to put what you want on....)

Thanks for your replies. Darren, yes that does make sense, thanks again. posde, agreed would be cheaper if buying new, looking at making use of things I already have to test it all out. Looking forward to playing with it all once the graphic card gets here, everything else I have should work for a basic setup from what I've read.

The main problem is that android has far and few tabletop -and- wall docks....

To buy a apple product is way far off budget..

the DT webpad looks promising

I could go for a cheap android tablet 7-10 inch -or- run a dell axim with wince app.. witch i had a soo so operating axim 50v witch had wifi and a tabletop cradle and seemed to run ok for a interface..

On the most part...

#1 - getting a new house might put hybrid as a main interface with a 19" touch screen on wall in the kitchen or attached area for main access.

If you already have the touchscreen and just want to use it as an orbiter you could attach a small machine to it and just run orbiter on it.

Depending upon how adventurous you are might guide your options. There are certainly sub $100 Android STB type devices available that you could mount to the back of the touchscreen. There are other SoC type options that you can buy/build that can run small linux distros and then you could compile orbiter for it.

You could get an older Atom based box second hand and install it as an MD with onscreen orbiter running Orbiter v1 on it.

All these options might involve a bit of messing around to get the touchscreen drivers etc working but I think they would all be doable.

With the windows xp, CE, android and web orbiters you can get pretty creative. My kitchen is sporting a webdt 515, awesome device running windows xp embedded. I also have a Xybernaut Atigo M in my living room running windows CE. Google them for specs and pictures. I have them both connected to my 2008 r2 terminal server since my terminal server has more horse power than these embedded devices. However if you scale it down a little these devices can do the same on it's own. I created GPO's to create the desktops, icons and user enviroments automatically. All I need to do is get a low powered windows device and a touchscreen, plug it into my network, join it to the domain and it's ready to go. Since it's Windows almost all... all touchscreens will work.

With the windows xp, CE, android and web orbiters you can get pretty creative. My kitchen is sporting a webdt 515, awesome device running windows xp embedded. I also have a Xybernaut Atigo M in my living room running windows CE. Google them for specs and pictures. I have them both connected to my 2008 r2 terminal server since my terminal server has more horse power than these embedded devices. However if you scale it down a little these devices can do the same on it's own. I created GPO's to create the desktops, icons and user enviroments automatically. All I need to do is get a low powered windows device and a touchscreen, plug it into my network, join it to the domain and it's ready to go. Since it's Windows almost all... all touchscreens will work.

This should be pretty straightforward (at least viewing but touch might be tricky).

The *buntu versions of Linux MCE is still using X server to provide a graphical environment, and X can be tinkered with to do all sorts of things.

It may take some tinkering to get it done with what equipment you have available. First thing is to find out the make and model of your touchscreen and google it with +linux in the search string.. I have an 8" touch LCD that detects nicely in GNU/Linux with touch input interpreted as joystick input, manually configured in /etc/xorg.conf. I'll have a go with it when I get my core up and running, eventually.